Top: National Guard -- Bottom: U.S. Army Stryker -- See larger photo -- (Photos by American Border Patrol)

Last Wednesday I flew a Canadian TV crew along the border. They wanted to see what was really happening. They did.
As we flew from Bisbee airport eastward I positioned the airplane so their cameraman could see where the U.S. government had placed Army Stryker armored vehicles. This was easy since they were in the exact spots where National Guard units had been deployed earlier.
The big difference I could see was the increased discomfort suffered by the soldiers. Instead of a group sitting on lawn chairs under a tent where they could chit-chat as they stared into the desert, the Stryker units had one guy sitting on top of the unit - in the open - using a scanner.
The Strykers did seem to have better surveillance gear, but that didn't matter since no coyote in his right mind would expose his charges to their gazing eyes, and this would be very easy considering the excellent cover in this part of Arizona.
As was the case with the National Guard, when we got about 15 miles east of Douglas, no more Strykers and no more U.S. Border Patrol. That part of the border  all the way to the New Mexico state line --- and beyond --- is wide open; maybe because most of the land is owned by the Nature Conservancy -- and we certainly couldn't have Strykers on their turf.
As with the National Guard, the deployment of the Strykers (under control of the U.S. Border Patrol, by the way) is a waste of money and soldiers. The only added benefit of the Strykers is that they protect the soldiers against hostile fire. This, however, raises the question: Is Obama afraid of an attack from Mexico?

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